Many considerations must be taken into account when a crematory is entrusted with the disposition of human remains. Among these, the positive identification of the deceased individual from extant corpus to cremated remains is critical to the piece of mind of the deceased individual's family and loved ones. Cremated remains pose certain identification challenges to crematories, however, since cremated remains retain no characteristics that make them identifiably unique from one another. All cremated remains are very similar in consistency and only vary slightly in shades of grey color.
Existing cremation techniques use metal tokens, such as steel tags, heavy gauge metal discs, or metal bands, to track and identify an individual during all the stages of the cremation process. Each metal token is imprinted with a unique number that serves as a unique identifier for the deceased individual. The metal tokens, however, are not able to be integrated with the individual during all stages of the cremation process. Accordingly, the existing tokens do not provide a continuity of positive identification throughout all of the stages of the cremation process.
More specifically, the direct flame and heat used to reduce the human remains to bone fragments discolor and burn the metal tokens rendering them unreadable. Hence, the metal tokens are removed from the individual before placing the individual into the cremation chamber and re-associated with the individual after the individual is reduced to bone fragments. Further, the metal tokens can damage the mechanical pulverization equipment that is utilized to reduce the bone fragments to granulated particles. Therefore, the metal tokens are removed from the individual before placing the individual's bone fragments into the mechanical pulverization equipment and re-associated with the individual after the reduction to granulated particles is complete. Accordingly, a need exists for a cremation technique that provides for improved and positive identification of an individual's remains continuously through all stages of the cremation process.